


Death Club

by mintgreen



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Death, F/F, F/M, Humanstuck, I'll probably add more tags eventually, M/M, Necromancy, Sky High AU, Teen Angst, death everywhere, kind of, more like sky high juvy au, with a dash of fight club
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-10
Updated: 2015-06-14
Packaged: 2018-04-03 20:06:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4113246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mintgreen/pseuds/mintgreen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's the world's highest security juvenile hall for kids with dangerous superpowers. So of course they sneak out all the time.</p><p>And it turns out people will pay out the nose to watch kids with dangerous superpowers fight each other to the death in a secret underground battle ring.</p><p>That's why they always drag Jade Harley along.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dead Guys Have Bad Breath

**Author's Note:**

> karkat has blood powers, so! tw for self-inflicted injury

Jade Harley is a nice, normal girl, dangit. There are a billion nice, normal things she could be doing tonight, like finally watching Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs on Netflix, while possibly also eating some meatballs, but instead she’s sitting in a makeshift throne in an abandoned parking garage, and the only meatballs in her immediate vicinity are the two meatball-headed boys who are currently trying to murder each other for the entertainment of the masses. And she’s definitely not interested in eating either of them.

“How often do they take shows off Netflix?” she yells. She has to yell, because the crowd’s yelling, even though Rose is squeezed in beside her. “Like every week? Or month?”

“They’re actually getting rid of Netflix entirely. Scientists have discovered it’s more effective and efficient to use laser-surgery to kill off people’s excess brain cells.” Rose turns a page of her book. She’s always reading these thick books with tiny text that Jade can’t read over her shoulder, even with her glasses on. The books have title-less covers in ominous shades of purple. Jade has no idea where she gets them, since there’s no library in the Slabs, or where she gets the arm strength to pick them up. They’re like a bazillion pages long and the one she’s reading is taking up more space in the teetery egg-crate throne than Rose herself.

“Aww, darn it! I wanted to watch that meatball movie!” Jade protests.

“SHOW US SOME BLOOD!”

“TEAR OUT HIS THROAT, BIRD BOY!”

The crowd has a lot of interesting requests tonight. Rose ignores them. Her sharp hip presses into Jade’s. It could have occurred to Vriska to build this stupid chair a little bigger. “You could cut out the middle man, as it were, and just eat some meatballs without the accompanying commercial for meatballs.”

“RIP OFF THOSE WINGS AND SHOVE THEM UP HIS PANSY ASS!”

“But with the movie, it’s like you get a whole environment of meatballs!” says Jade. “It makes the meatballs meatballier. Haven’t you ever read the Wikipedia article for steak while eating steak? Or watched Harold and Kumar go to White Castle while eating White Castle? Oh wow, I’m hungry.”

“LET’S SEE SOME JUMP-ROPING WITH HIS INTESTINES!”

“Somebody’s been watching Battle Royale.” Rose arches a perfect pale eyebrow at the mass of shadowy figures in the crowd, mostly white college boys who smell like booze and money. 

“After this, let’s go for pizza,” Jade pipes. “Sausage and pepperoni, Dave’s treat, with the cash he’ll get. He’s going to win. That’s why he let himself get that handicap.”

Rose sighs. “Twelve out of twelve scholars agree that he just did that to piss off Karkat.”

Dave turns, smirks, and flaps the handicap in question, an enormous pair of bright orange, newly acquired wings that replace his arms, at the crowd. Several of those silly baseball caps that bros wear zing away from their heads in the breeze, and the roaring rises to a fever pitch. Jeez. Show-off. Jade giggles anyway.

“This is embarrassing,” says Rose. “Nepeta shouldn’t have agreed to give him those damn wings.”

“She thought they were hilarious.” They’re pretty hilarious.

Normally, Jade makes an effort not to care about the winner in situations like this. In fact, she makes a big point to disapprove of the fight ring in general, especially considering the fact that she has to get dragged to every single match and sit in this stupid uncomfortable ‘death throne’ that Vriska dreamed up – for stage presence, she said. Yuck. Normally, Jade crosses her arms and scowls and doesn’t smile even when something really, really funny happens.

But today, the fighters just so happen to be her good childhood friend Dave, and Karkat Vantas, the semi-new guy (two years means you’re still new in the Slabs) who just so happened to completely utterly embarrass the stuffing out of her the other day, in front of everyone.

And she kind of wants Dave to kick his ass.

The crowd’s especially nuts today. Dave and Karkat are everybody’s favorite fighters. Dave because he’s a goofball and somehow manages to make everyone crack up while still nailing all these anime-cool moments that are probably mostly due to his sunglasses (forget about how Rose sees – how the heck does Dave see in here with those things on?) and Karkat because…he’s…well…

Messy.

Karkat’s dark hair is all in his eyes (okay, seriously, vision is important, people should prioritize that) and he’s panting, half-crouched on the concrete, his shirt glued to his body – not with sweat, but with blood. Three inflamed scarlet gashes slice across his collarbone, matching the ones on each upper arm, providing a steady pulse of blood to his fingertips, soaking his sleeves. It’s such a pain to do laundry in the Slabs, too. 

Dave has that silly anime sword he swiped from his brother strapped to his waist, but the blade’s clean. Karkat’s own fingernails, filed to sharp points (he tried to get Nepeta to shapeshift him some tiger claws, but she said they’d look goofy – “YOU GAVE DAVE ORANGE BIRD WINGS,” Jade’d heard him roaring before the match) are not. 

“PREPARE TO BE ROYALLY FUCKED, YOU CORVID MOTHERFUCKER!”

The crowd also likes Karkat because he swears a lot.

Karkat whips his hands up and the blood zooms off his fingertips in zigzaggy streams that crackle, harden, sharpen to a deadly points aimed at Dave’s throat, heart. Dave doesn’t move an inch, and the crowd screeches, and even Jade winces a little, even though she knows what’s coming next. 

The scarlet needles slow and eventually stop in midair, and so does Karkat, stuck in a ridiculous scowly freeze-frame with several drops of blood motionless in the air around him.

Dave walks to the still figure, then taps his chin with one feather in mock thought. He kicks one of Karkat’s ankles behind the other and moves the other boy’s hands so he’s doing a peace sign, which takes a good while, what with the wings. Then he fishes his phone out of his pocket, does his own peace sign, and takes a feathery selfie (seriously, Jade has to admire his wing dexterity) next to Karkat’s furious frozen face. The crowd practically blows the roof off the parking garage.

“That’s going on Instagram,” Rose notes.

This is perfect! Tomorrow everyone’ll be so busy laughing over Dave’s Instagram feed that nobody’ll remember the absolutely ridiculous nonsense that Karkat spewed at Jade yesterday, in front of EVERYONE–

Dave steps neatly to the side and unfreezes Karkat from time. The blood needles splash to the ground and Karkat trips, faceplanting. He bounds up almost immediately, swearing so loudly and furiously that Jade can’t actually make out individual words.

“Dave’s being a dick.” Rose idly turns a page of her mysterious book. “Karkat’s going to pass out from blood loss soon.”

As much as Jade was annoyed at him, she didn’t want to see that. Well, maybe she did a little. But the nicer part of her was stronger! 

Karkat sways as he gets up, and then it happens – he tosses a would-be casual glance over his shoulder. Right at Jade. Oh, dang it! That’s why he’s running himself into the ground. She sinks into the throne. 

He rips a new gash across his chest, tearing straight through his shirt, and transforms the resulting gush of blood into a series of arrows that Dave pauses in midair, one by one. 

“Hey asshole, there’s this really fascinating concept called actually fighting back, you might want to look it up once you learn how to read!” Karkat shouts, but his voice cracks. Almost the entire arena floor is dyed a darker color by his blood. 

“Come on, Dave,” Rose mutters. “Call it.”

“Dude, I read all the time. One time I read this book called how to throw in the towel when you’re getting your ass severely kicked. Long title. Then I realized I’d never need it, so I left it in your locker.”

There’s an edge to Dave’s ordinarily super-chill tone. 

“I was afraid of this,” says Rose.

“Afraid of what?” Jade draws her knees up. She’s ready for the fight to be over.

“Oblivious as ever.” Rose props her book back open.

Jade knows Rose goes in for the whole enigmatic thing, but really, that’s just unnecessary.

“Always a good idea to give away your possessions when you know you’re gonna die!” Karkat yells, staggering, before shredding his left forearm. Blood spurts out, solidifying into a spear, which Dave pauses an inch from his face.

“Dude,” he says.

“I swear to every fucking god that has ever been conceived of by humanity, if I have to hear the word dude plop past your lips like a deer turd one more time–” He slices open the other arm and flings more useless blood-arrows at Dave. He’s milk-pale now, gasping. Jade knuckles her forehead. This is a disaster.

But the crowd loves it. From a distance, she can see Vriska stealing between groups, drawing out last-minute bets, a satisfied smile on her face.

“Dude,” Dave says again. “You’re gonna like, die.”

“Fuck you,” says Karkat, and collapses.

A zillion shadows dance on the ground as most of the crowd jumps around, cheering, and whatever newcomers Vriska coerced into betting on Karkat slump and dig around for their wallets. Dave’s wings suddenly seem incredibly ostentatious as he kneels next to Karkat, who’s facedown on the concrete, a pool of dark liquid spreading around him. Jade flattens herself so hard against the egg crates that she’ll probably have a latticework on her butt tomorrow.

“He’s totally fine!” she says above the roar of the crowd. “He’s totally – look, did his butt just twitch? I think it did! I’m pretty sure that was the butt twitch of a fine person!”

“If you think his butt’s so fine, I’m surprised you turned him down in class yesterday,” Rose smirks.

Why are all of her friends like this?

Dave looks up from Karkat’s motionless form, the poor light drawing the guilty lines on his face even deeper. Oh no. Oh no no no. 

Rose settles back, flipping through her book. “I said he should have called it.”

A nice, normal girl would be halfway through a plate of Trader Joes meatballs by now, in bed with Pixar. But Jade is not a nice, normal girl. Not normal, anyway. Her face flaming, she hops off Vriska’s stupid stupid freaking throne.

The crowd’s starting to dissipate, and now she can see her friends popping up among them. Vriska, with fistfuls of cash and a triumphant grin, and John, who only comes to these fights when Dave is in the ring and when Vriska insists they need extra crowd control. Everyone else is at home sleeping in the slabs, because it’s too risky for Vriska to sneak more than five of them out at once.

It’ll be extra risky to drag an unconscious Karkat back. Because unconscious is all he is, definitely. He’ll wake up and be woozy and they’ll maneuver him through the tunnels and it’ll be super super awkward but he won’t be, you know –

“Hey, Jade,” Dave says in a fake casual voice as she approaches them in the center of all that widening space. “So, uh, I just wanna put it out there that this is definitely objectively more Karkat’s fault than mine.”

She whacks him on the head.

“Ow!” He slips backward, his longest wingfeathers dipping into a puddle of blood. “Birds have hollow bones. Science fact. Be gentle.”

“You’re buying me like eight pizzas!” she barks. “With every kind of meat on top that they have!”

“Vriska told me to milk the fight!” He shields himself with his wings. “Far be it from me to disobey the spiderbitch.”

Jade rolls Karkat onto his back. Bloody doesn’t even begin to describe it. He’s almost cartoonishly painted red. At least his sticky hair is all clumped up and out of his eyes now, which admittedly doesn’t do much good when they’re closed. But then they open a crack.

“See?” she squeaks to no one in particular. “He’s fine.”

“Ohhh fuck,” Karkat groans through bloodied blueish lips. “Fine…? Do I look fucking fine? Is the fact that I’m fine one of those really obvious falsehoods that a bunch of assholes got together and agreed to accept anyway, like Christianity? Or the concept that Dave is cool?”

“Hey,” says Dave behind his wings. “I’m cool.”

Jade flops back on her butt, not even caring that red isn’t her color. The relief is like a cloud. Big, damp, billowing. Behind her, she can hear Vriska ushering everybody out through the secret tunnels, and the unbelievable clatter of John doing the windy thing to blow all the various alcohol containers into one corner, but it’s muted by the wetness of all the relief in her ears. He’s not dead.

“Your powers suck,” she grumbles.

“Jade, listen,” he says weakly.

She flaps her hands furiously. “Oh nooo, don’t start with that. You know what that sounds like? A death confession. How about instead we talk about all the pizzas that Dave’s gonna buy me–”

He’s breathing shallowly, the blood in the hollow of his collarbone shining with the rapid rise and fall. There’s no color left in any part of his skin. “Shut up for a godforsaken second, Harley, I have to tell you something and I don’t have a lot of time.”

“Really? Because I think there’s way too much time around right now,” she says venomously, glaring at Dave, who winces.

“Seriously,” Karkat mumbles. “I’m sorry about yesterday. I fucked up. It all came out of me like a torrential rainstorm of shit from on high. I misread some signals–”

“You think?” she explodes. She doesn’t mean to, but she does. “Karkat, all we ever do is argue!”

He shuts his eyes briefly. “Fighting is often mixed up with flirting, which you’d know if you ever bothered reading a book that deals with the complex relationships that arise between–”

“Romance books! You’re talking about smut novels!”

“Holy mother of fuck, is it a cardinal fucking sin to be interested in the deep psychological explorations of–”

“You can read your dumb smutty romances, but what I’m saying is that they give you silly ideas about what girls want!” 

Karkat has a unique ability to annoy the heck out of her even when he’s bleeding out on a cold concrete floor. It’s kind of impressive, actually.

“Number one thing girls don’t want – to get love confessions shouted at them in the middle of a test,” Dave says.

“Shut up!” Both Jade and Karkat yell at him at once.

“If the motley crew of idiots would let me finish my deathbed confession,” Karkat continues, his voice fading, “it was a stupid fucking crush, and I’m over it now. I don’t even like you on a platonic level anymore, Harley. Not your dorky giant-ass glasses, not your frizzy black hair, and even if you showed up on my doorstep with your lips pursed and spent four hours begging, I wouldn’t make out with you if it was a matter of life or–”

He makes a quiet choking noise, spasms, and then all his muscles relax at once, his eyes going wide and glassy.

Oh no. Oh, God. Oh no. Jade covers her mouth and then her eyes for good measure. Suddenly she no longer wants pizza.

“Shit,” says Dave.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to present: several fat wads of cash, courtesy of yours truly! With a little help from birdbrain and our resident megaphone, I guess.” Vriska waltzes toward them, holding fistfuls of dollar bills aloft. Her arms lower as she glances at Karkat. “He’s looking pretty bad, isn’t he? I pull off blue lips way better than him.”

Jade just stares numbly at Karkat’s body. His face is usually so expressive that the death-blankness makes him look like another person altogether.

“Ahhhh, fuck.” Dave wraps his wings around his body like he’s not even aware he’s doing it. “I’m sorry, Jade.”

“Everyone quit apologizing to me!” Meatballs. That was all she’d wanted out of tonight.

John pops up behind Vriska, his hair poofed straight up and glasses askew from the wind. “Hey, Dave!” He always greets Dave first. “Can you actually fly with those things? What kind of bird has that color wings, anyway? Wait a sec…guys, is Karkat breathing? Oh man, he’s not. Oh man.”

“Figures.” Vriska nudges his body disdainfully with her toe. “I don’t know what he expects, slashing himself open all over the place. You’d never catch me wasting my blood like that. Even if I had such completely unsubtle powers.”

“Hurry up,” Rose calls from her throne. Jade suspects she kind of likes it there. “I’m getting eyestrain reading in this light.”

They all look at Jade.

She feels like crying. Which annoys the absolute heck out of her. Why does she have to be the one to clean up everyone else’s messes, huh? Maybe she should just let him be dead for a while! That would teach him!

“He did say he didn’t want you to make out with him even if it was life or death. That gives you an out.” Dave’s joking, but there’s that weird edge in his voice again.

This time Vriska’s the one who clocks him. “Our biggest cash nights are the ones when Karkat covers everything in his blood. He’s like a Japanese slasher flick and the Saw movies wrapped up together. Way too much profit to toss out. Get it over with, Jade.”

“I have mints,” John volunteers. “So many mints.”

Stupid Karkat and his stupid powers!

“Come on, Jade,” says John anxiously. “If you wait too long…”

Jade doesn’t know what the exact time limit is. She doesn’t really want to test it enough to find out. Rose thinks it has something to do with the body still needing to be warm, and she’s wondered aloud enough about the possibility of keeping dead bodies microwaved that Jade plugs her ears whenever she starts talking about it.

Fine. Fine, Karkat!

She leans forward and kisses him on the lips. 

He’s still warm.

Instantly, the others flick out of existence. The textured darkness of the concrete walls is replaced with the soft, infinite black of the night sky. No clouds, but no stars, either. Jade’s standing in a little wooden boat that’s just bumped against the sandy shore of a small island, stranded in the center of a waveless sea.

“About fucking time,” says Karkat. His silhouette is hunched near the shore. He draws shapes in the wet sand with his forefinger, shapes that disappear as soon as he’s done tracing them. “What were you waiting for, next year’s Superbowl?”

He gets up and tries to jump in the boat beside her, but she blocks him with an oar.

He groans. “Come on. I know you didn’t make out with my bloody corpse and take a vacation to Creepy Death Island, Hawaii just to tell me my dead body needs kissing practice.”

“I have some rules first that you need to agree to!” she announces. “Lifeboat rules!” 

He pushes against the oar. For a ghost, he’s pretty strong. “Let me in the boat, Harley, my ectoplasmic goddamn shoes are getting wet.”

“Agree to my rules first.”

“Can we not play the queen of the gates of life game? You’re not Vriska, thank fuck. Remind me to send your mom a gift basket. I want to personally thank the owner of every uterus who did not produce Vriska.”

“I’m not playing games!” She shoves back with the oar, so far that Karkat stumbles back. His feet sink into the water without making a splash. The boat rocks, but it doesn’t push away from the island. It never goes anywhere she doesn’t want it to. “I’m not letting you in this boat unless you listen to me, I mean it. You can sit on the death beach and make creepy sandcastles for eternity for all I care.”

He sighs, but he stops pushing on the oar. 

“It’s too quiet here,” he mutters. “That’s what I hate about it the most. It’s like the quiet sucks up my voice until I can’t even hear myself talk. And then when I’m alive again I have to yell to remind myself I’m not in this weird Coldplay music video filming location anymore…”

“Is that why you practically broke my eardrums when you asked me out in class the other day?” Jade can’t help but ask.

He throws his hands up. “Is that your rule? Fine, Harley. I agree. I will never ask you out again as long as I live, or even when I’m dead and you’re alive, or vice versa. Happy?”

Ghosts can’t blush, but she can hear it in his voice. Then she realizes – he’s just as embarrassed about that incident as she is.

“Okay,” she pipes. “We agree to forget it.”

He makes to step into the boat again, but she stops him.

“Don’t make me Captain Jack Sparrow this situation, Harley, I swear.”

She should never have invited him to that Pirates of the Caribbean marathon she’d had with John. “The other rule is that you can’t fight in Vriska’s ring anymore.”

“Ha ha ha. Very fucking funny. I’m in stitches. Not literally, because if I’d had stitches I wouldn’t be dead. Maybe we should get an actual doctor on our squad instead of a necromancer, wouldn’t that be more convenient for everyone, including the fucking necromancer?”

“That’s my rule!” she growls. “What do you need to do it for, anyway? Are you that scared of Vriska?”

“Of course I’m fucking scared of Vriska. Genghis Khan is rolling over in his grave because he’s scared of Vriska. But that’s not why I do it.”

“To show up Dave? Because I’m sorry, Karkat, but there is never gonna be a day when he doesn’t kick your butt.”

“I would like to point out, if it’s not too much fucking trouble, that Strider didn’t touch me. I’m the one who beat me. If anyone gets credit for defeating the great Karkat Vantas, it’s Karkat fucking Vantas. And no, I do not give two shits about Strider. If I were to line up every shit I’ve taken over the course of my life and select the measliest ones, I still wouldn’t give them about Strider. I need the cash.”

She blinks. “Why?”

“I’ll send a telegram when that never becomes your business, Harley.”

For a guy who loudly asked her out yesterday in the middle of an exam, he’s pretty grouchy. 

Well, he’s always been grouchy. But there’s a different tilt to it now. He’s not shyly punching her arm, or smirking under his scowl. There’s a hard outer shell to it. Hiding something. Hurt?

Maybe Rose is right about her being oblivious. Maybe she’d been leading him on all this time and hadn’t realized. It wasn’t as if she hated arguing with Karkat, exactly. It was just that she’d never thought about dating him. Stuff like that never occurred to her.

She clears her throat. “No more fights, or no boat.”

“Oh my fu–”

“It’s dangerous, I think,” she says. “Dying. Being here, doesn’t it give you a weird feeling? This sort of bad, urgent feeling, like you have to get out while you can…I feel that way, and it’s not even my death place! You can’t keep doing this, Karkat. Every single time I get scared and I worry, what if this time it doesn’t work? What if my powers just disappear and I can’t bring you back?”

“You just don’t want to have to kiss me anymore,” he accuses.

“That too,” she says. “John’s sick of me eating all his mints.”

Karkat snorts, short but genuine. “Fine. No more fights. At least for a while. Now let me in your goddamn boat, I’m starting to feel tingly around the edges.”

He looks tingly, as much as a person can. If Jade squints, it’s like his edges are starting to soften, blending with the soft shades of darkness all around him. Her stomach jolts. Maybe she shouldn’t have made him stay here so long. She yanks him into the boat and is relieved to hear the solid thud his feet make on the planks.

“Hoist the sails. Shiver me timbers. A pirate’s life for me. Oh fuck what am I saying. Like idiot pirate phrases have ever made things less awkward.” He won’t look at her. She’s alone with him a tiny boat in a world not meant for them, and somehow that feels more intimate than if they were sleeping together. At least she assumes so. She’s never slept with anybody.

“One more thing, real quick,” she says.

“More rules? Do I have to give you a foot massage twice a week? Because I do not have a foot fetish–”

“No!” Why does he always have to make things a thousand times harder to say by blathering on about nothing? “I wanted to say I’m sorry!”

“For bringing me back from the dead? Because that’s not something that normal people apologize for, Harley. Then again, normal people don’t go around bringing people back from the dead, so–”

“I’m sorry for hurting your feelings yesterday,” she says in a rush.

He stops midsentence, his mouth an O, but before he can say anything, Jade dips her oar in the water and pushes away from the shore. For a second they’re floating on nothingness. Then – 

The world flicks back into place around her. The parking garage suddenly seems blazingly bright. Her mouth tastes like blood, and she rears back, spitting, as Karkat automatically finishes the sentence that was on his lips when he died: “–death.”

“Hey buddy!” John says cheerfully. “Good to have you back!”

He shakes a few mints into Jade’s hand and winks at her. She pops them into her mouth and chews, making a face. Dave is giving her a weird look.

“What?”

“That took longer than normal,” he says. “You froze with your mouth on his and your eyes wide open like the world’s creepiest wax statue for like, five minutes.”

No wonder she can’t get the taste of death out of her mouth. Even despite it, despite the blood smeared on her chin, she’s ravenous. She could eat three hundred steaks.

Karkat straightens. He’s still pale, still splattered with red, but the wounds underneath have all healed. He’s covered in scars, but there are no new ones. Death wounds never leave scars. “No shit it took longer than normal. Harley was talking my ghostly goddamn ear off.”

“Oh yeah?” Dave’s semi-casual voice is never that convincing. “About what?”

“Maybe I’ll answer that question from somebody who didn’t just murder me.”

Dave flaps his wings in annoyance, blowing all their hair back. “Look how clean my sword is. You could wipe your ass with this sword. In fact, I invite you to.”

“How about I wipe your neck with it?”

“Boys,” Vriska says. “Kiss and make up.”

Jade raises her hand. She’s still feeling shaky, but she doesn’t want anyone to know, and the best way to hide stuff is to talk like normal. “I don’t recommend it, Dave. His lipstick gets everywhere.”

“Ew.” John makes a face.

“Shake hands and make up, then, if you want to be babies about it.”

Dave kind of whacks Karkat with his wing.

“The fuck?” he splutters, his mouth full of feathers.

“What? I don’t have hands.”

“Captain’s announcement! THIS. IS. STUPID.” Vriska cups her hands around her mouth. “And we need to get back to the Slabs before the sun rises, so if you useless nerds don’t mind making our merry way down the tunnels, I’ll give you your cuts once we get there.”

She turns and grins at Jade.

“Handy as always, death princess.”


	2. Death Hangover

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Karkat, I tried to bake you an apology cake, but goddamn it if a cake made by a bird doesn’t have feathers sticking out of it everywhere."

Three eggs. Six pieces of toast. Nine slices of bacon. Oh wow, Jade’s whole breakfast is divisible by three! But only one person is going to eat it, hee hee.

“That is enough food for three people and a small but ambitious horse.” Rose takes a sip of steaming black coffee and raises one well-exercised eyebrow.

“Do you know how many calories raising someone from the dead burns?” Jade asks, seizing a plateful of pancakes and smothering them with maple syrup and whipped cream. “Like, a whole freakin’ ton of them!”

“I estimate it burns about five thousand calories, based on your general diet and the fact that you’re a bit chubby.”

“I like food!” she says. “And being soft!”

Breakfast in the Slabs is surprisingly good for a place with barred windows and tables bolted to the ground so nobody can levitate them as weapons. Then again, bad food hasn’t really been a thing since everyone woke up with superpowers a hundred years ago. Jade would happily trade her necromancy as well as half her lifespan to be one of those lucky jerks who got the ability to materialize any food they could imagine. The lunch lady, Betty, has a hella good imagination when it comes to breakfast.

Eating everything within arm’s reach also has the happy consequence of not being able to answer any questions that anybody at her lunch table is obviously yearning to ask. She can’t decide which one she’d rather skewer herself before acknowledging – So Are You And Karkat Like Going Out Now Or What, or in a hushed voice, How Was Death Club And Can I Come Next Time?

But nobody at the table’s brought up Karkat’s confession yet. Maybe they all forgot about it already!

The boy in question selects that moment to sit across from Jade. ‘Sit’ isn’t really accurate. It’s more of an oozing motion. 

“Karkat, you look like shit,” pipes John helpfully over a pile of sausages.

“That’s being downright complimentary, Egbert. Why not just nail honesty between the legs and say I look like a sentient pile of garbage that graduated with honors from ugly school?” Karkat reaches for the platter of bacon, but changes course halfway when he realizes he’d have to put his hand dangerously near Jade’s. Really? They’re going to be this awkward? At least she gets to eat all the bacon.

“That is a monster hangover!” calls Roxy Lalonde from halfway down the table. She tosses a bottle of ibuprofen, which Karkat catches. “How drunk did you get last night?”

Jade puts three slices of bacon in her mouth at once and waits for it all to come out – that Karkat died last night, that she had to kiss him. Why the heck is she getting so embarrassed over this? She never used to be the blushy-blushy type!

“Drunk as fuck,” Karkat says shortly. “Too drunk to funk. Too fuck to drunk. You get the picture. Pass the goddamn orange juice.”

But instead of reaching for the orange juice, he glares significantly first at John and then at Vriska, on the other side of the table – Dave’s not here yet – before dodging Jade’s gaze again. What’s his deal?

“You got drunk before the exam yesterday?” Roxy laughs. “Is that why you asked Jade out in the middle of it? Because I thought that was cute as heck. I’ve been waiting forever for you guys to have babies.”

Karkat chokes on his orange juice. The circles under his eyes are deep, his skin sallow. Dying really does a number on a person! He coughs for a minute and then recovers. “Yeah. I was nervous about the test, took one too many shots like a dumbass, and yelled out some drunk shit I don’t remember, that didn’t mean anything. Sorry, Harley.”

Even though she’d already agreed to forget about his confession, Jade can’t help but grin. It’s a good lie. She’d been so afraid everything would be permanently screwed up between them! And who knows? Maybe he’s telling the truth and he really was drunk in class yesterday! 

She reaches over and punches him lightly on the shoulder. “Don’t drink in class, doofus! No wonder you tanked the exam!”

“Everyone tanks Jack’s exams. We basically raided SeaWorld for their fish containers.” But he still won’t meet her eyes. No, this won’t do. Jade’s determined to flambé the awkwardness between them. Feeling this embarrassed all the time is super annoying!

“You know what you need?” She swiped a piece of bacon and prods his lips with it. “BACON!”

“What a surprise, Harley’s go-to fix for complex educational problems and physical degeneration brought on by dea – alcohol, is meat.” But he has to open his mouth to say it, and she takes the opportunity to wedge the all-powerful pork slice between his teeth. Ha!

“Glad you guys are back to normal.” John smiles.

“Indeed,” Rose smirks. “I don’t doubt that without the constant entertainment provided by the Harley-versus-Vantas battles, we’d all die of boredom and Jade would have to consume approximately eight platters of bacon to have the energy to resurrect us all.”

Jade pats Karkat’s head as he splutters, then sits back. It’s always kinda weird having breakfast with somebody after bringing them back from the dead, especially when you rejected them yesterday. But, like Betty always says, the best way to break the ice is to force-feed someone breakfast food!

“Where’s Dave?” John playfully swats Roxy’s hand away from the last of the apple juice. “He’s late.”

“Where’s Dave,” Vriska mimics. “John, save us all your lovesick pining and just ask the boy out already!”

He turns tomato-red. “I am not a homosexual.”

“Whatever. Lying to yourself is bad for the skin!”

Phew. That’s that. Nobody’s thinking about Jade and Karkat anymore. Just the way Jade likes it. She kicks him under the table. “Pssst!”

He glowers at her. Yay! Eye contact! “Sorry, can’t talk, there’s some bacon lodged in my lung.”

“How’d you sleep?” she asks.

He winces. That tells her all she needs to know. People tend to have bad dreams the night after they die. Eldritch horrors, grimdark monstrosities, according to Rose, who asked Jade to resurrect her once out of curiosity. Only Rose would be willing to die for science.

“You can knock on my door if you’re having nightmares, you know! Your room’s right next to mine!”

He chokes on his waffles. He’s not very good at eating this morning. “What – what are you offering, a bedtime story?”

“No! But I can definitely, um, splash cold water on your face or something!”

“Yeah, I’m sure that’ll cleanse the fucked-up depths of my subconscious, Harley. I’ll be sure to go meditate under a waterfall the next time I die.”

“I’ve actually been developing some theories about the ways that dying affects your subconscious,” Rose says crisply. “It may not be as laissez-faire consequence-free as we’d all like to believe.”

Oh, jeez. By now, she’s brought most of them back from death at least once – John from his odd tunnel under miles of earth, Rose from her soft pillowy cloud in the middle of the sky, even Vriska from her tree in the center of fields of green grass – but Karkat, thanks to his powers, dies way more than any of them combined. Apart from the super un-fun aspect of having to kiss his corpse, Jade does prefer his death-place to the others. It’s kinda relaxing, the quiet little island! But she hopes she’s not screwing him up psychologically.

“You’re not the one killing me, you’re the one bringing me back,” says Karkat. He reads her like that sometimes. It’s pretty funny.

“Maybe you should quit using your powers, then,” she says. “For most people, it’s frowned upon to be constantly slashing yourself to ribbons!”

“But then I couldn’t do completely hilarious and necessary things like this.” He takes the butter knife, swipes it across the back of his hand, and the resulting snake of blood rises up, whips across the table, and gouges a hole in the plastic glass of orange juice that Vriska is raising to her lips, causing a neat stream to squirt all over the front of her shirt.

“Very funny, Karkat! Ha ha!” She looks dead at him and grins.

His eyes widen. “Oh, fuck. She’s about to mind-control me, isn’t she–”

His face goes empty. He stands up, his jaw slack, and slowly pours maple syrup all over his own head.

“I always thought you could stand to be a little sweeter,” says Vriska gleefully.

“Aw, don’t, he’s already not feeling well,” says John.

Karkat raises a stiff arm and whacks himself across the cheek. 

“Tsk, tsk.” Vriska shakes her head. “Stop hitting yourself, Karkat. You’re getting your hands all sticky!”

“Quit it, Vriska.”

Jade’s standing up, scowling. This probably isn’t doing a whole lot to dispel rumors of her and Karkat dating, but if last night taught her anything, it’s that she’s gotta stop people from being giant jerks to Karkat when he was only a mild jerk to them first. “Get out of his head.”

Vriska blinks. “Sure thing, Jade. Whatever you want.”

It’s always creeped Jade out a little, how nice Vriska is to her when she’s – well – a huge bitch to everyone else. But then, people tend to suck up to a girl who can bring people back from the dead.

Karkat blinks slowly, maple syrup in his eyelashes, and then groans, long and slow. “God only knows what I was expecting.”

“Dave!”

Jade follows John’s pointing finger and gasps. Suddenly the entire cafeteria is cracking up around them. 

“This is perfect!” Vriska cackles. “All I needed was some feathers to dump on Karkat’s head.”

Dave squeezes between John and Jade, which is difficult, thanks to his rather large wingspan. “You guys can laugh if you want, but I rock being a bird. Been thinking about getting into bird’s rights activism. I’m talking bread crumbs subsidized by the government, sayonara to clear glass windows. Once you’re awoken to injustice you can’t just go back to sleep. Also I look sick in orange.”

“Nepeta won’t change you back, will she?” says Rose dryly. “She’s pissed at you for getting Karkat killed.”

“Oh hell no. The birdage is a personal choice. Like when right-handed people decide to use their left hand for a while because they’re tired of everything being so easy for them. Do you know how hard it is to put on sunglasses with feathers instead of hands? And to get dressed? Jade, do me a solid, zip my fly.”

“Don’t go anywhere near his fly,” Karkat rages.

“Too late. Currently, all of me is pretty fly.”

“I can just see you hatching more bird puns,” says Rose.

“You’re getting my breakfast all feathery,” Jade complains. 

“Shit, speaking of food – Karkat, I tried to bake you an apology cake, but goddamn it if a cake made by a bird doesn’t have feathers sticking out of it everywhere. Still, it’s in my room if you want it.” 

His smile’s a little guilty. Jade understands. She always ends up feeling bad about the people she resurrects, even though she knows it’s not her fault they died!

“I told you, I’m the only one who killed me,” Karkat says gruffly. “As if any one of you fuckwads could pull that off.”

Suddenly, the loudspeakers overhead crackle to life:

“Class S-B please make your way to Classroom X for a make-up exam following yesterday’s…interruption.”

“Oh fuck me sideways with a corkscrew made out of twizzlers,” says Karkat. “That’s us.”


	3. Everyone Dies Dramatically

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There’s a reason they call it dead silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chapter will be up sunday!

Jade always sits in the exact same space in the Dr. Scratch’s classroom – right in the middle, sandwiched between Rose and Dave (the most delicious reverse Oreo in the world, Dave called it once) and with the back of Karkat’s messy black-haired head directly in front of her, in perfect spitballing distance. But despite two years of pinging teeny paper bullets off his head, he’s never moved.

The classroom is melodramatic as heck. High barred windows, an even higher ceiling, creepy low lighting. It’s like a college lecture room for vampires, if Karkat liked to suck blood instead of fling it at people. Though he sucks in general, so maybe that counts. Ooh, that was a good one! Jade’ll have to remember it.

“Good day, children.” Dr. Scratch is pacing in front of the blackboard, his big pale bald dome of a head glistening despite the poor light. He makes everyone call him Dr., though Jade is pretty sure he doesn’t even have a masters degree. What a nerd. “As our monthly exam was tragically interrupted yesterday by certain professions of affection–”

She can’t see Karkat’s face, but she could roast marshmallows on the heat coming off him. A wasted opportunity. He’d be a great person to take camping.

“ – and, as this classroom proved unable to continue to take serious things seriously in the face of such obviously high-important issues as youthful crushes, we will be doing the exam all over again today.”

A chorus of groaning. Dave flexes his wings in irritation and one of his feathers pokes Jade in the shoulder. If Nepeta won’t change him back, she should at least prune him!

It’s a testament to Dr. Scratch’s infallibility and the general weird shit that goes on in the Slabs that he hasn’t commented on the fact that one of his students is now sprouting a huge pair of orange wings. He tucks his hands behind his back. “But before we begin, I’d like to issue a little reminder of the gravity of your situation. And why you should take these exams seriously.”

Oh, great. Lecture time. Aka – spitball time. She giggles and starts tearing off bits of notebook paper.

“Why are you here?” He turns his small, watery eyes on the classroom.

Tavros Nitram raises his hand. He’s always trying to suck up. “Because, um, we’re not fit to be members of society in a sense that is, er, functional, and safe, sir?”

“Correct, Mr. Nitram,” says Dr. Scratch. “The Abilities Distribution a hundred years ago, posited by some to be the next step in our evolution as a species, bestowed powers on most that would benefit society without overwhelming it. The ability to materialize food. To purify water. To locate lost objects. But, every so often, a child is born with powers deemed dangerous.”

Could she lodge a spitball in Karkat’s ear from here? This would be so much easier if he’d comb his darn hair!

“Our fine school – ”

“Prison,” Vriska mutters from the row behind Jade.

“ – is dedicated to ensuring that each of you understand the gravity of your powers and the importance of serving society, not harming. Once you prove beyond a doubt that you can handle this responsibility, you’ll be released into the wider world. Many of you will have normal lives. Some of you may even be chosen to serve the government in a capacity befitting your abilities.”

Is it Jade’s imagination, or does he stare at her a second too long?

“If we want to, that is,” says Vriska loudly.

“Once you’re approved to be released, serving the greater good is ideally all you’ll want,” says Dr. Scratch mildly.

But Vriska doesn’t stop talking. “I’ve also been wondering something for a while now, Sir! What happens if we never get approved to leave? Like, if the school decides we’re always going to be a danger to society?”

Dr. Scratch watches her for a moment, his face totally inscrutable. He really does look like a cueball. “I’d like to continue with our exam now. Karkat, since you disrupted us last time, you may go first this time.”

Karkat gives a loud, gravelly sigh and stands up just as Jade lets a perfect spitfall fly. It misses by a mile. Shoot! Now comes the most boring part of exams – quiet study time while everyone’s tested one by one in the private room behind the stage. It’s especially boring without Karkat to argue with in whispers.

“Additionally, as penance for yesterday’s interruption,” says Dr. Scratch, “your exams will take place right here. In front of everyone.”

“Oh FUCK no.”

Jade jolts at the force of Karkat’s exclamation. So does everybody else. Yesterday, Karkat was only the second person to be examined, which means only he and the zipper-lipped Damara Megido know what this particular exam entailed. But it couldn’t have been that bad, right? Although Karkat had been looking pretty pale and brain-scrambled when he’d walked back into the room and one-upped Jade on their prank war by declaring fake love for her.

That’s what she’s decided it was. A spur-of-the-moment prank. Revenge for all those spitballs. And boy, did it work.

Dr. Scratch’s normally pristine forehead creases. People don’t generally backtalk him.

“I mean,” Karkat waffles, sweating, “that’d probably be a fucking detriment to my education or whatever, right? There’s gotta be some sort of federal school guidelines.”

“Get down here, Mr. Vantas.”

“Actually, you know what? I have to go to the nurse’s. I was force-fed some bacon this morning and it’s not agreeing with me. So unless you brought an umbrella for the torrential rainstorm of puke that’s about to –”

“Get. Down. Here. Now.”

Karkat’s rigid as he walks down to the stage. Jeez! He’s well-and-truly freaking out. Which isn’t that unusual, actually, because he usually freaks out at least twice before lunch and three times before dinner. Jade’s convinced he runs on a schedule.

Karkat jams his hands deep in his pockets, hunches his shoulders, and generally looks like he’s about to be decapitated. Dr. Scratch circles him like a cat. “I don’t ordinary disclose the nature of the exam in advance, so I can study your instinctive reaction, but in this case, I think it’ll be more beneficial to my surmising of your character to see how you react when forced to perform in front of others.”

“He’s going to wet his pants,” Dave whispers. “Shit, I don’t have my phone, someone Instagram this.”

“The purpose of this exam is to take stock of how you use your powers under stress,” Scratch continues. “In real life, we need to trust that you will not endanger others in every situation, whether it be alarming or commonplace. That is why, today, you will be faced with your worst fear and judged on your ability to refrain from using your powers under pressure.”

Everyone starts muttering at once. All they’d had to do last time was take a written test on the laws concerning use of abilities! What even is Jade’s worst fear? Spiders are cute, the dark doesn’t bother her, mummies and zombies make her giggle, heights make her feel like she’s on the Titanic…maybe she doesn’t have a worst fear and the test won’t work on her. Wow, that would be really badass! 

Dave is mumbling “Shit shit shit shit shit” under his breath.

“I fear nothing less than the all-encompassing abyss of the unknown. I fail to surmise how that could be approximated into an exam,” Rose says. She pauses. “And clowns, I suppose.”

On the stage, Dr. Scratch stares intensely at Karkat. Behind her, Jade can hear Vriska leaning forward. No matter how much she hates Scratch, she’s always impressed with his powers. Which makes sense, because they’re kinda like hers, only with more scope. There’s a reason Dr. Scratch was put in control of the most dangerous people on the planet – he can read minds, influence them, and temporarily bend reality based on the results. One time Jade was having a suuuper embarrassing daydream about Zayn Malik and he casually made it a reality on the stage. Which, you know, was mortifying, but also kind of awesome. But ever since then, she’s had a strict no-makeout-daydreams-anywhere-near-Scratch policy.

Also, she’s super excited to see what Karkat’s worst fear is. And why it immediately made him come back in the classroom and spout a bunch of untrue nonsense about how he thought he might like her in that way, and would she maybe want to go on a walk with him round the exercise facility this evening so they could talk –

Ergh, even the memory makes her blush. She really is a sucker!

Dr. Scratch closes his eyes. It probably takes some concentration. Karkat’s shaking, his fists balled up. Jade feels a pang despite herself. There’s something about a guy who can’t attack without cutting himself open that makes you wanna stick him in a box where nobody can get to him, even if is the most insufferable dork in the world.

Plus he’s her nemesis. She can’t forget that. Ever since they dropped him off two years ago – super late for somebody to arrive at the Slabs – something about him just makes her so…argh! All she wants to do is chuck stuff at him and argue with him and make fun of all the dumb loud profane stuff that comes out of his mouth.

So she must hate him. That’s the only explanation. She has no problem being nice to everybody else, after all!

Heh, this is gonna be good. Whatever his worst fear is, you can bet she’s gonna tease him about it! Maybe he’s afraid of the idea of Jade kicking his butt and that’s why he felt the need to one-up her yesterday.

Dr. Scratch steps back, and Karkat’s eyes go weirdly glassy for a second.

Then Jade appears onstage. 

What the heck? But she’s sitting in her chair! It’s a different Jade, a copycat Jade. Is Karkat’s worst fear seriously getting his butt kicked by her? Yes, this rules! Also, she had no idea she was that hot. Like, dayum. Thick thighs save lives.

“Interesting,” says Rose.

Karkat’s still frozen, eyes fixed on the fake Jade. Then a shadowy faceless figure rises up behind her, something glinting in its hand – a knife!

“Hey, watch out, fake me!” the real Jade yells, but it’s too late. The shadowy figure stabs the heck out of fake Jade. She cries out (her voice isn’t that high, is it?) as blood blooms all over her front. Hmph. She’d have much better reflexes than that.

Wait a sec. How is this Karkat’s worst fear?

Is…is his worst fear her dying?

Holy cow! That can’t be it. Maybe it’s getting somebody else’s blood on his shirt. Because he’s, erm…cradling her now. He caught her as he fell and now he’s sobbing over her limp body, trying to staunch the blood flow. 

He’s…afraid of…tears. Stab wounds! That’s gotta be it!

The entire classroom is dead silent. Karkat’s sobs echo all around the ceiling. Dr. Scratch is making him think it’s real. And wow, is he upset.

Jade sinks low in her chair. This is way more embarrassing than yesterday. Way way way way way way wayyyyyy more embarrassing.

“Well, this is awkward,” Rose murmurs.

Okay, Jade’s gotta save Karkat’s dignity and her own. She leaps up, waving her arms frantically at the open-mouthed students behind her. “Hey everybody! Listen up! I heard this great joke the other day. A fly walks into a bar, what does he ask for?”

“Oh God,” Karkat’s moaning. “Jade, wake up, no, please, no no no…”

“A stool!” she practically screams.

There’s a reason they call it dead silence.

“No comments while the exam is in progress, please,” says Dr. Scratch lazily.

Stupid cueball! She’s going to chop off his head and donate it to a bachelor’s game room!

The shadowy figure raises his knife again and takes aim at Jade’s body. Karkat looks up, gives a strangled cry, and pulls her close with one arm while biting into the forearm of the other with his weirdly sharp teeth.

His blood shoots straight upward in three whiplike streams, puncturing the figure’s head.

“Test over,” Dr. Scratch says shortly. “Subject has failed.”

The shadowy figure vanishes, and so does fake Jade’s body. Karkat’s left gasping on the ground, tear tracks shining on his cheeks, confusion slowly replacing the abject grief and horror.

Jade stands up. “What the heck do you mean he failed?”

“Jade,” Rose whispers warningly.

“No, I mean, that’s total crap! He didn’t do anything wrong or hurt anybody! All you did was traumatize him! He only used his powers to protect – er, me!”

“That doesn’t matter,” says Scratch. “Class C powers are strictly regulated by the federal government. Usage under any circumstance not pre-approved is illegal, even in life-or-death situations. We simply cannot afford to take any risks when this level of danger is involved.”

“That’s crazy!” The only thing Jade wants to do in the entire world is smack him right in the stupid face. “Look at him, you totally freaked him out for a dumb rigged test!”

Karkat’s ragged breathing is audible even from a distance. He looks up and Jade accidentally meets his eyes, not something she was intending on doing immediately, or ever. They’re so full of shame and self-loathing that she has to look away immediately.

“Since you have so much input today, Ms. Harley, you can go next.”

Oh crud. Well…that’s fine! She’ll show everyone just how silly this test is. She gets up and marches down to the stage.

“Mr. Vantas, you may return to your seat,” says Dr. Scratch, but Karkat seems incapable of movement.

Jade hoists him to his feet. His hands are all clammy, yuck. “Get up, you big sack of potatoes. I’ll take care of this.”

He wobbles for a second. His face is still kinda foggy. “Fuck…Jade?”

“The one and only! Alive and definitely not stabbed, even a little.” She pats him on the head, her face burning. “Now go sit down. And drink some water.”

Good grief, that boy is a mess. Once he’s staggered off, she flexes and turns to face Dr. Scratch. Bring it! Nothing scares Jade Harley when she’s this grumpy! She’s the only one allowed to pick on Karkat. She’ll deal with all the implications of his exam later.

Dr. Scratch stares deeply into her eyes. Jeez, he has weird eyes. All pale and hardly a different color from his skin. He might as well be a pink water balloon…pretty much the least intimidating thing…to ever exist…what is she doing down here again?

Oh look, there’s Karkat! Wasn’t he just here? She can’t remember. She’s tired and woozy. What’s shakin’, Karkles…hee hee…

Oh no! He’s bleeding. Oh noooo. He must have just been in one of Vriska’s fights. He’s bleeding a lot. He took things too far again. It’s running down his arms, his legs, and he’s dangerously pale, and she’s only ever seen him bleed this much right before he –

Collapses in a heap, his eyes closing, and it’s obvious right away that he’s not breathing anymore.

Her pulse quickens like it always does, but it’s fine, this is what, like, the fifth time? That boy has a pain tolerance like no one she’s ever met. And all she has to do, like always, is ignore the queasiness and the fear that rises in her stomach at the sight of him dead on the floor, because she has powers, and they’ve never failed her before.

But this time, when she kisses him, nothing happens. There’s just the stillness of her hand on his chest and that sticky taste in her mouth, like she just licked a cast-iron pan. No, that’s not right. She kisses him again. His lips are still warm, and she has to banish the tiniest flicker of curiosity about what it would be like to kiss him if he were alive.

But panic pulverizes that thought, because she’s kissed him three times now and there’s no boat and there’s no island, just his body, dead on the floor.

“Karkat?” Her voice cracks. “Um, something’s not working…give it a sec. Um…”

She kisses him again, and again, and holds it this time, but there’s nothing. 

Her powers are gone.

She’s a normal girl crouching above a boy who died because he thought she could bring him back.

“Karkat. Oh noooo. This – this can’t be happening! You…you have to come back to life on your own this time! Come on, Karkat, please, I’m sorry for throwing all those spitballs at you, I don’t know why I’m always so mean to you. I promise to nicer if you’ll wake up!”

She’s crying now, his body cradled in her lap, her stomach a tight ball of sickness.

“Jade.”

Someone’s resting a hand on her shoulder. Go away! Can’t they see this is the worst day of her life? But the hand’s insistent, and then it’s on her cheek, warm and familiar and uncertain, grazing away a tear. “Jade, it’s okay. I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine, Karkat, you’re dead!”

But suddenly the Karkat in her lap is gone, and the Karkat standing behind her is grabbing her hand and pressing it to his wrist so she can feel exactly how alive he is.

“God forbid we get through one exam in this classroom without someone going into hysterics,” Dr. Scratch says dryly.

Dr. Scratch. The exam.

OH DARN IT!!!!!

Jade wrenches back from the not-dead-oh-thank-God-thank-God Karkat and springs to her feet. “Ta-da! That, erm, that was a sneak peak of a play Karkat and I are putting on this month! We wanted to surprise everybody! It’s called What Would Happen If Jade’s Worst Fear Was Not Being Able to Bring Karkat Back Ha Ha Wouldn’t That Be Really Silly! Tickets are twenty bucks! It’s a comedy-drama-Shakespeare-inspired-satire oh God Karkat this isn’t convincing anybody is it.”

“Nope,” he says, his lip twitching in a way that Jade absolutely can’t interpret at all.

“There isn’t a part two of this exam where we face our second worst fear, is there?” Jade asks Dr. Scratch. She’s pretty sure her second worst fear is staring at a classroom full of people who just found out, at the same time as her, what her first worst fear apparently is.

“I give up.” He rubs his cueball head in annoyance. “We’ll try this again next week. Class dismissed!”


	4. Jade's Worst Fear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Am I sitting too close?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a big assignment due soon and then my friend is visiting so! next update prob won't be until around the 25th - 27th, sorry :c will try to squeeze it in earlier if I can!

Jade’s favorite place in the whole school is the roof of the dormitory. You’d think it’d be pretty hard to climb on the roof of a supposedly high security facility, but the real security is surrounding the gate of the school. As long as students stay on the grounds, nobody really cares. Which means that Jade can sit up here under the stars as long as she likes. 

Ahhh. Solitude. The perfect circumstance to contemplate, in vivid, excruciating detail, all the ways in which she’d never going to be able to face anybody from her class ever again.

Especially not – 

“Jade? I thought you’d be up here.”

She jolts so hard she almost falls off the roof. “Karkat! What are you doing here? You hate heights!”

“True.” He’s clinging to the roof like he thinks it’s about to buck him off, a thin sheen of sweat gleaming on his forehead. She can’t imagine the amount of bravery it must have taken to scale the fire escape. Er, not bravery! Pigheadedness, that’s all it is. “But I thought you’d be up here.”

She groans. At least it’s too dark to see him, really. She guesses it doesn’t count as facing him when she can’t even see his face. “All right, all right. Come sit by me. I swear I’ll catch you if the wind blows you off the roof and splatters you on the lawn – joking, joking, it’s barely even breezy tonight!”

Karkat draws his knees up to his chest and hisses through his front teeth, “You’re joking about my death pretty easily for a girl who apparently has it as her worst fear.”

Eurgh. He’s got a point. There’s a minute of silence.

“Am I sitting too close?” he says gruffly.

“No. I told you to sit next to me.”

“You’re stiff as a goddamn board, Harley.”

“Well, that’s just how I sit!”

“Do you want me to go?”

There’s a little bit of uncertainty in the way he says it, a little bit of vulnerability. She sighs. “No.”

Another long, floppy minute of silence. 

“So,” Karkat says.

“So,” she returns.

More silence.

“GOD FUCKING DAMN IT, HARLEY, EITHER TELL ME TO GET MY FREEZING ASS OFF THIS THIRTY-FOOT-HIGH DEATH TRAP AND LEAVE YOU TO YOUR CLEARLY PRIVATE CONTEMPLATIONS OR TELL ME WHAT THE FUCK YOU’RE THINKING ABOUT.”

There’s the Karkat she knows and can’t stand! 

She giggles. “Now I can’t tell you anything, I’m too busy writhing in pain from my busted eardrums.”

“I call bullshit. The only thing you’re writhing in is love.”

She was gearing up for a good old Karkat argument, and that catches her off guard. “What?”

“You heard me!” He hunches up, his voice full of shaky determination. “Love, affection, fondness, fucking stomach butterflies and all that!”

“No, I mean, do people writhe in love? Like is that a romantic thing to say? It sounds kind of icky.”

“Say that once you’ve delved into the world of adult relationship literature, Harley.”

“If you came up on this roof to try to convince me to read your gross porn books again…”

“They’re not porn, you infantile sack of bullshit, and no, I came up here to tell you that you obviously have a crush on me!”

Even in the dark, she can tell how hard he’s blushing. She’d make fun of him about it if she wasn’t sure she’s blushing at least twice as hard. Why is everybody always accusing her of being all heart-eyed over Karkat Vantas? Now even Karkat Vantas is in on it! She’s certain she’s completely oval-eyed for him. Circle-eyed at best.

“Why, because of the exam today?” She’s gotta keep her voice light. Karkat’s the one who has an embarrassment crisis every five minutes, not her. “Gosh, Karkat, you’re being really silly! My worst fear is that my powers will stop working when I need them. It doesn’t have anything to do with you specifically. I think my mind just supplied your body because you were the last person I resurrected. And the person I’ve done it to the most. It makes sense that you’d be the default.”

“Wow,” he says, deflating a little. “That’s…surprisingly reasonable.”

“Heck yes it is!”

“So your worst fear isn’t…losing me?”

She bites her lip in silence.

“Oh God,” Karkat says, horrified. “Oh God that was the most pathetic thing I’ve ever heard and I’ve said a lot of pathetic things. Everyone kneel, the king of pathetic statements is getting crowned right this fucking second. Scuse me while I jump off the roof.”

He stands up.

“No!” Jade yelps. “Don’t you dare!”

“You could resurrect me in a hot second. Leave me to my humiliation-induced suicide.”

“It would be a huge hassle!” she stammers. “I’d have to climb all the way down there, and Dr. Scratch would probably wake us up and give us both extra homework, and also I’ve kissed your dead body enough today!”

“Fair enough.” He sits back down and watches her for a minute, his brow furrowing. “Harley, relax. I wasn’t really going to jump.”

“I know that!”

“You’ve seen me die like, five times. You’d think you wouldn’t get so revved up about it by now.”

You’d think that, wouldn’t you? “God, Karkat, that doesn’t matter! You can’t just casually die in front of a person! Do you ever think about the damage you’re inflicting on my subconscious? Rose would have a field day with it! I already have nightmares! Jeez, you make me so mad, you big…you big doofus!”

“That’s the Harley I know,” he snorts. Then he blinks. “You have nightmares? About…me dying?”

“Don’t read into it!” She flaps her hands wildly. “I get nightmares after watching the operation scenes in House!”

“You’re squeamish for a necromancer.”

“I am not squeamish, I just have a sensitive mind! I’m a cancer.”

“So am I,” says Karkat. “July 15th.”

“Wait, your birthday’s so close to mine! You never told me when it was. We could have been having joint birthday parties.”

“Hmph,” he grunts. And after a second, adds, “Necrocancer.”

“What?”

“Like…it’s a pun. Oh forget it, Harley, you wouldn’t know fine humor if it broke into your car at the drive-thru and stole your popcorn.”

“That is the weirdest analogy you’ve ever made.”

“Categorically not true. Remember the one with the squid and the Tibetan prayer flags and the moisturizer?”

“Oh yeah, that one was really dang weird.” She giggles, then stops. “Do you think we’ll ever get to experience things like that?”

“Prayer flags and moisturizer?”

“No! Things like going to the drive-thru. Normal things. Walking outside during the day and getting ice cream, or going to the beach, or – ooh, the zoo! I’ve always really wanted to go to the zoo! The only animal I’ve ever seen up close, not counting Nepeta’s animal parts, is a dog when I had when I was little, but I never saw him again after I got taken here. I don’t even remember his name.”

Karkat’s frowning. “Jade Harley, if we ever get that seal of safety from the federal government, I will personally take you to the fucking zoo.”

“And the drive-thru?” she prompts.

“And the…okay, what the fuck is this? Do you see why I get confused? Half the time I’m convinced you hate me, and then you do things like commit me to a hypothetical zoo-drive-thru date. It’s classic hot-cold romance behavior.”

“You’re hot and you’re cold, you’re yes and you’re no…”

“Please stop singing before I tear my ears off and gag you with them.”

“You really say the most romantic things to the girl you’re trying to confess to, Karkat.” Jade hesitates. “Is that…er…what you’re trying to do? Again?”

“Fuck no! I mean, not if it’s not reciprocated. And I’m not saying I had a crush on you! I just, I didn’t expect that to be my worst fear, and when I came out of it I was pretty frazzled and I thought, if there was ever a less subtle way for the Feelings Man to bang on my door and say GUESS WHAT FUCKER…and then when you had the same fear –”

“Maybe it wasn’t really my death you were so scared about,” she interrupts. “Maybe that was more of a metaphorical representation. Maybe you’re just afraid of losing people in general. Or not being able to protect them. And your brain supplied me because, like, I happened to be the last person you talked to or something.”

“So what you’re saying is that we got all confused because of that stupid fucking exam, and neither of us actually have feelings for each other.”

“Yup! Exactly! Definitely!”

Karkat rests his chin on his knees. The breeze tousles his hair. “Well, thank fuck for that.”

She elbows him. “Yeah, it saves you the trouble of having to realize I’m way out of your league!”

“The sad thing is that’s probably true.”

“Don’t be too torn up about it. I’m out of everyone’s league.” She sticks out one flawless leg and runs her hand up her round thigh, which spreads out in a glorious pancake when she flattens it against the roof like that. “Have you seen these legs?”

Karkat makes a choking noise and she folds her leg back underneath her. She forgets how easily flustered he is.

“Disregarding that,” he says. “You know what the other sad and potentially fucking hilarious thing is?”

“Do tell. I love sad and hilarious things. That’s why I talk to you so much.”

“JESUS FUCK ON A POPSICLE STICK, HARLEY, HERE I AM TRYING TO HAVE A HEART TO HEART WITH…okay…sound probably carries up here. Anyway. The sad and hilarious thing is that you’re probably my best friend here.”

She wasn’t expecting that, so blunt and open. It probably felt like less of a big deal to him after two days of awkward semi-love confessions. Still, she feels all squirmy inside. And not in an entirely unpleasant way. “I thought you said you didn’t know if I hated you or not.”

“That’s the sad part,” he says. “Generally you should be pretty solid on whether or not your best friend hates you.”

“Well, let me clear that up for you.” She knocks his shoulder affectionately. “I hate you.”

“I hate you too,” he says, leaning into her briefly so that his shoulder bumps against hers.

Jeez, their relationship is so weird.

“Hey, but you have Dave, and Vriska, and –”

“Dave thinks I’m a vaguely amusing idiot, which I can’t really fault him for. Vriska feels similarly and also I’d rather shred my toes with a potato peeler than have her for a best friend. And to save you the trouble of going down your list, John’s too obsessed with Dave to have any room for another best friend, Rose’s best friend slot is filled by you, Dirk’s always fucking off with his computers, Roxy’s always fucking off with Dirk, and everybody else here is too young or too old to talk to us.”

He rattled it off so immediately. He must have spent a while thinking about this.

“Aw, Karkat, I honestly didn’t know much you counted on me for like, friendship! I’m sorry for being such a jerk to you all the time.”

“No no no,” he says hastily. “I love it.”

She raises an eyebrow in the suspicious way she’s adopted from Rose. “Is this a kinky porn book thing?”

“NOT EVERY ASPECT OF MY LIFE IS TAKEN FROM MY READING MATERIAL AND IT’S NOT PORN okay don’t hit me, I’m lowering my voice, listen to how fucking quiet I’m being now, nuns are jealous. As I was saying. I communicate with people by yelling at them, it’s because I’m an asshole, I don’t know how to be any different. I’m trying to learn, but I haven’t learned yet. But you, you don’t give a shit about that. You yell right back. That’s why this works. You’re not scared. You never were.”

“Nobody here is scared of you, you dork.”

“They were. When I first showed up. You’ve all been here since you were little, but then I’m dumped in, this shouty sweary socially awkward douchebag who regularly slices the shit out of himself, with creepy blood powers – you didn’t notice, but everyone else was fucking terrified. You were the only one who talked to me.”

“I was?”

“Two years ago, when I first came here, when we were twelve, remember? My third day, nobody’d talked to me, I was fucking miserable, and I yelled at you in the lunch line to get your frizzy-haired ass out of my way, and you turned around and dumped your pea soup on my head.”

“Oh yeah!” Jade laughs. “Really, that was just an excuse to get rid of my pea soup. That stuff was too salty.”

“Yeah, well, nobody was scared of me after that.”

“You’re sure spilling a lot of emotional gushy stuff to me tonight. I should probably be saying more poignant things! But mostly, that day, I was just in a bad mood because I’d gotten my period for the first time.”

“Wish I could get a period,” says Karkat.

“You’re the only person in history who’s ever said that.”

“It’d be nice to get access to my own blood without having to carve up myself like it’s happy fucking Thanksgiving, gobble gobble.”

“First of all, ew. Second of all, you’re already the moodiest person on the face of this planet. If you got your period we’d all be doomed.”

Karkat laughs. It’s a rare sound, and she likes it. Tonight’s a nice night, she decides. But then he ruins it.

“I’m going to fight for the death club again in a few days.”

“You are not, you jerk! You agreed you wouldn’t!”

“I said I wouldn’t for a while,” he corrects. “And it’s been a while.”

“It’s been like five minutes. As your newly appointed best friend, I’m saying no!”

“I need the money.”

“What the heck do you need money for? What does Vriska need the money for? It’s not like there’s much to buy in the Slabs!”

Karkat opens his mouth and then shuts it again. That annoys Jade more than she can say. She thought you were supposed to tell best friends everything.

“I’m sick of watching you die,” she snaps.

“Then close your eyes when it happens, Harley.”

“That is – ugh! You are such an insensitive jerk! And you know what? You can’t do one of Vriska’s fights again, because I’ll refuse to go to the next one! Ha!”

She thinks he’s going to blow up at her again. She’s ready for it. That’s why it surprises her when all he does he stand up. 

“Let’s go inside,” he says. “You’ve got goosebumps.”


End file.
